Chapter Two

They exited the flex tube from the passenger ship in step, arm in arm, Quinn with her duffle swung over her shoulder, Miles with his flight bag gripped in his free hand. In the orbital transfer station’s disembarkation lounge, people’s heads turned. Miles stole a smug sideways glance at his female companion as they strolled on past the men’s half-averted, envious stares. My Quinn.

Quinn was looking particularly tough this morning—was it morning? he’d have to check Dendarii fleet time—having half-returned to her normal persona. She’d managed to make her pocketed grey uniform trousers masquerade as a fashion statement by tucking them into red suede boots (the steel caps under the pointed toes eluded notice) and topping them with a skimpy scarlet tank top. Her white skin glowed in contrast to the tank top and to her short dark curls. The surface colors distracted the eye from her athleticism, not apparent unless you knew just how much that bloody duffle weighed.

Liquid brown eyes informed her face with wit. But it was the perfect, sculptured curves and planes of the face itself that stopped men’s voices in midsentence. An obviously expensive face, the work of a surgeon-artist of extraordinary genius. The casual observer might guess her face had been paid for by the little ugly man whose arm she linked with her own, and judge the woman, too, to be a purchase. The casual observer never guessed the price she’d really paid: her old face, burned away in combat off Tau Verde. Very nearly the first battle loss in Admiral Naismith’s service—ten years ago, now? God. The casual observer was a twit, Miles decided.

The latest representative of the species was a wealthy executive who reminded Miles of a blond, civilian version of his cousin Ivan, and who had spent much of the two-week journey from Sergyar to Escobar under such misapprehensions about Quinn, trying to seduce her. Miles glimpsed him now, loading his luggage onto a float pallet and venting a last frustrated sigh of defeat before sloping off. Except for reminding Miles of Ivan, Miles bore him no ill-will. In fact, Miles felt almost sorry for him, as Quinn’s sense of humor was as vile as her reflexes were deadly.

Miles jerked his head toward the retreating Escobaran and murmured, “So what did you finally say to get rid of him, love?”

Quinn’s eyes shifted to identify the man, and crinkled, laughing. “If I told you, you’d be embarrassed.”

“No, I won’t. Tell me.”

“I told him you could do push-ups with your tongue. He must have decided he couldn’t compete.”

Miles reddened.

“I wouldn’t have led him on so far, except that I wasn’t totally sure at first that he wasn’t some kind of agent,” she added apologetically.

“You sure now?”

“Yeah. Too bad. It might have been more entertaining.”

“Not to me. I was ready for a little vacation.”

“Yes, and you look the better for it. Rested.”

“I really like this married-couple cover, for travel,” he remarked. “It suits me.” He took a slightly deeper breath. “So we’ve had the honeymoon, why don’t we have the wedding to go with it?”

“You never give up, do you?” She kept her tone light. Only the slight flinch of her arm, under his, told him his words had given pain, and he silently cursed himself.

“I’m sorry. I promised I’d keep off that subject.”

She shrugged her unburdened shoulder, incidentally unlinking elbows, and let her arm swing aggressively as she walked. “Trouble is, you don’t want me to be Madame Naismith, Dread of the Dendarii. You want me to be Lady Vorkosigan of Barrayar. That’s a downside post. I’m spacer-born. Even if I did marry a dirtsucker, go down into some gravity well and never come up again … Barrayar is not the pit I’d pick. Not to insult your home.”

Why not? Everyone else does. “My mother likes you,” he offered.

“And I admire her. I’ve met her, what, four times now, and every time I’m more impressed. And yet … the more impressed, the more outraged I am at the criminal waste Barrayar makes of her talents. She’d be Surveyor-General of the Betan Astronomical Survey by now, if she’d stayed on Beta Colony. Or any other thing she pleased.”

“She pleased to be Countess Vorkosigan.”

“She pleased to be stunned by your Da, whom I admit is pretty stunning. She doesn’t give squat for the rest of the Vor caste.” Quinn paused, before they came into the hearing of the Escobaran customs inspectors, and Miles stood with her. They both gazed down the chamber, and not at each other. “For all her flair, she’s a tired woman underneath. Barrayar has sucked so much out of her. Barrayar is her cancer. Killing her slowly.”

Mutely, Miles shook his head.

“Yours too. Lord Vorkosigan,” Quinn added somberly. This time it was his turn to flinch.

She sensed it, and tossed her head. “Anyway, Admiral Naismith is my kind of maniac. Lord Vorkosigan is a dull and dutiful stick by contrast. I’ve seen you at home on Barrayar, Miles. You’re like half yourself there. Damped down, muted somehow. Even your voice is lower. It’s extremely weird.”

“I can’t … I have to fit in, there. Scarcely a generation ago, someone with a body as strange as mine would have been killed outright as a suspected mutant. I can’t push things too far, too fast. I’m too easy to target.”

“Is that why Barrayaran Imperial Security sends you on so many off-planet missions?”

“For my development as an officer. To widen my background, deepen my experience.”

“And someday, they’re going to hook you out of here permanently, and take you home, and squeeze all that experience back out of you in their service. Like a sponge.”

“I’m in their service now, Elli,” he reminded her softly, in a grave and level voice that she had to bend her head to hear. “Now, then, and always.”

Her eyes slid away. “Right-oh … so when they do nail your boots to the floor back on Barrayar, I want your job. I want to be Admiral Quinn someday.”

“Fine by me,” he said affably. The job, yes. Time for Lord Vorkosigan and his personal wants to go back into the bag. He had to stop masochistically rerunning this stupid marriage conversation with Quinn, anyway. Quinn was Quinn; he did not want her to be not-Quinn, not even for … Lord Vorkosigan.

Despite this self-inflicted moment of depression, anticipation of his return to the Dendarii quickened his step as they made their way through customs and into the monster transfer station. Quinn was right. He could feel Naismith refilling his skin, generated from somewhere deep in his psyche right out to his fingertips. Goodbye, dull Lieutenant Miles Vorkosigan, deep cover operative for Barrayaran Imperial Security (and overdue for a promotion); hello, dashing Admiral Naismith, space mercenary and all-around soldier of fortune.

Or misfortune. He slowed as they came to a row of commercial comconsole booths lining the passenger concourse, and nodded toward their mirrored doors. “Let’s see how Red Squad is cooking, first. If they’re recovered sufficiently for release, I’d like to go downside personally and spring them.”

“Right-oh.” Quinn dumped her duffle dangerously close to Miles’s sandaled feet, swung into the nearest empty booth, jammed her card into the slot, and tapped out a code on the keypad.

Miles set down his flight bag, sat on the duffle, and watched her from outside the booth. He caught a sliced reflection of himself on the mosaic of mirror on the next booth’s lowered door. The dark trousers and loose white shirt that he wore were ambiguously styled as to planetary origin, but, as fit his travel-cover, very civilian. Relaxed, casual. Not bad.

Time was he had worn uniforms like a turtle-shell of high-grade social protection over the vulnerable peculiarities of his body. An armor of belonging that said, Don’t mess with me. I have friends. When had he stopped needing that so desperately? He was not sure.